The Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto will honor Chris Bischof as the recipient of the 2026 Kiwanis Angel Award on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 5:30-7:30 p.m., at the Sheraton Palo Alto at 625 El Camino Real, Palo Alto.
Bischof is the co-founder and principal of Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto. The award will recognize Chris’s decades-long commitment to expanding educational opportunities for young people in East Palo Alto.
When East Palo Alto’s only high school closed in 1976 and students were bused out of their community, Stanford School of Education graduate Chris Bischof and former classmate Helen Kim saw the dismal statistics: 65% of students dropped out of high school and fewer than 4% went on to four-year colleges. Their first response was a tutoring program, and in 1996, they started Eastside College Preparatory School.
In 2001, the school was able to construct a large campus with science and computer labs. Seven years later, in 2008, the school started an alumni program to guide Eastside graduates through college and into professional careers.
To date, over 99% of Eastside graduates have been admitted to four-year colleges. The student body is 77% Latino, 18% African American, and 5% Pacific Islander/Filipino, and 94% of graduates are first-generation college bound. Compared to national benchmarks for first-generation students like those at Eastside College Prep, alumni are more than three times as likely to graduate from college and twice as likely to secure a professional job.
The Kiwanis Angel Award was started in 2012 by the Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto to honor an individual in the Palo Alto area who has had a significant, positive impact on children and youth in our community and beyond. Nominations for the award are sought from the community at large. Last year’s awardee was Purvi Shah, founder and former CEO of Kids and Art Foundation.
Tickets are $85 per person. Tickets and additional information are available at kiwanispaloalto.org/welcome-to-the-angel-award
